Tag: snow geese

…Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-over and over announcing your placein the family of things.~Mary Oliver from “Wild Geese”

snow geese in Whatcom County – photo by Chris Lovegren

Snow geese are populating the Skagit valley and farm land, as numerous as the scores of colorful tulips which soon will fill nearby fields. The din of the flocks as they land and feed, then rise again in the air is astounding: a symphony of honks and hollers carried from one goose family to another in a ruckus of joyful abandon.

The Skagit flats become the New York City of snow geese for a few weeks, never sleeping.

Over the past few years, more snow geese wander up north closer to home here in Whatcom County to pepper our surrounding dormant cornfields like salt, sprinkled half a dozen here and there across the Nooksack river valley. When there are only a few together, their calling seems so melancholy, almost a disconsolate cry of abandonment carrying over the lonely countryside.

So too am I ensconced away from the clamorous masses, preferring always to be part of an out-of-the-way rural landscape. There may be moments of melancholy, to be sure. Yet here, as nowhere else, I know my place in the family of things — of gray clouds, owl hoots, swampy wetlands, frog choruses, orange sunsets, pink sunrises, warm pony muzzles, budding snowdrops, and steaming manure piles.

I give myself up to wild abandon in a world offering itself up to my imagination instead of leaving nothing to the imagination.

Let the cities clamor and clang in their excitement. They do just fine without me.
Instead I celebrate the relative silence that allows me to seek words to fit the music singing in my soul.

…Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting- over and over announcing your place in the family of things. ~Mary Oliver from “Wild Geese”

photo by Kathy Yates

photo by Josh Scholten

Snow geese are populating the Skagit flats and farm land, as numerous as the scores of colorful tulips which soon will fill nearby fields. The din of the flocks as they land and feed, then rise again in the air is astounding: a symphony of honks and hollers carried from one goose family to another in a ruckus of joyful abandon. Skagit is the New York City of snowgeese for a few weeks, never sleeping.

There are a few geese who wander further up north into Whatcom County to pepper our surrounding dormant cornfields like salt, sprinkled half a dozen here and there across the Nooksack river valley. When there are only a few together, their calling seems so melancholy, almost a disconsolate cry of abandonment carrying over the lonely countryside.

So too am I ensconced away from the clamorous masses, preferring to be part of an out-of-the-way rural landscape. There may be moments of melancholy, to be sure. Yet here, as nowhere else, I know my place in the family of things — of gray clouds, owl hoots, swampy wetlands, frog choruses, orange sunsets, pink sunrises, warm pony muzzles, budding snowdrops, and steaming manure piles. I give myself up to wild abandon in a world offering itself up to my imagination instead of leaving nothing to the imagination.

Let the cities clamor and clang in their excitement. They do just fine without me.
Instead I celebrate the relative silence allowing me to seek the words to fit the music singing in my soul.

“Spring seems far off, impossible, but it is coming. Already there is dusk instead of darkness at five in the afternoon; already hope is stirring at the edges of the day.”
Kathleen Norris in Dakota: A Spiritual Biography

For the last several days, whenever I am outside in the barnyard wheelbarrowing loads of manure, or carrying buckets of water, I’ll hear the approaching honking crescendo of snow geese coming from the north. I stop whatever I am doing to watch the sky. The geese fly in precise V formation as they head from northeast of here, the Frasier River Valley in British Columbia, southwest to the Skagit Valley flats some forty miles away where thousands of them will glean leftovers from harvested farm fields for the next few weeks. They are in constant vocal and visual contact with one another as they fly over, perhaps pointing out a point of interest here, or sharing a juicy bit of gossip there. Maybe they simply navigate by following the sound of the goose whose tail is right in front of their own honking feathery face. It is like an a capella male chorus of a dozen voices warming up using only one note–E flat.

There is such expectancy in each noisy group that passes over, each oblivious to me enviously watching them from below. They have clear mission and purpose without needing a vision statement or strategic planning retreats. They know where they have been, where they are headed and that there will be full bellies by nightfall. They work as a team to get there with minimal energy expenditure and high efficiency. They never appear ambivalent or confused. I even suspect they like each other quite a lot.

I wish I had such clarity. I stumble about wondering which direction I need to turn next, what task has highest priority, who needs to go with me or who I should follow behind, how I can be more fruitful rather than futile.

I need the hope of the snow geese. Winter won’t last forever.

Psalm 147:16-18
16 He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down his hail like pebbles.
Who can withstand his icy blast?
18 He sends his word and melts them;
at the breath of his mouth, the waters flow.

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A physician’s chronicle of faith, family and farm life in rural northwest Washington state.

I come from Pacific Northwest farmers going back three generations, the daughter of teachers, married to a son of farmers; we have raised three children who are making a difference in the world as teachers and people of faith.
While keeping my eyes and heart open to the extraordinary things around me, I work as a full time primary care physician in a University setting, as well as a steward of the small farm we call home.
What I can harvest in words or pictures finds its way here.
Contact email: emilypgibson@gmail.com

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Listening to Others…

...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ... And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8 -9

What is my only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
~Heidelberg Catechism

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver

I must consume the abundance of moments now. Days I am overwhelmed, wanting to write the music of my life in a slower tempo … yet this is the glorious dance of now.
So I shall dance in bare feet. For I am on holy ground.
~Ann Voskamp "A Holy Experience"

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.
~ T.S. Eliot

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.
~Emily Dickinson

I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
~ C. S. Lewis

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
~ Augustine

Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields...Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver

The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine the true poetry of life.~ Sir William Osler

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~George Eliot's final sentence in Middlemarch

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E.B. White

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.~~ "The Wild Geese" Wendell Berry

Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.
~ Jane Kenyon from "Let Evening Come"

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.~ J.R.R. Tolkien

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. ~ Thomas Merton

This life therefore is not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet
what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end
but it is the road.
~Martin Luther

Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
~ Mary Oliver

Love isn’t a function of communication so much as Love is a function of communion.
~ Ann Voskamp

It is not your love that sustains the marriage —
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She has done what she could...
~Mark 14:8

What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit